See it here: https://issuu.com/bhamkidsandfamily/docs/bluff_park_neighborhood_reader_-_january_february_/29

One day, I decided to walk to the school around lunch time. You can do that. As a parent of an enrolled student. No warning. No heads up. Just go. And I’ve got three kids over there. A lunch visit can take a while.

On that particular day, it was a little rainy. On weather apps these days, it’s possible to view the “hourly” charts, which, in my opinion, are speculative at best and a waste of time. Nevertheless, I checked it, and my walk did not appear to be in any sort of jeopardy.

BUT… I bought an umbrella on Amazon not that long before. It was a big one and the only umbrella that I had ever purchased in my life. It was also the only umbrella I ever recall being in possession of that wasn’t broken or too small or found by my children to be used as a lightsaber. Therefore, being one who often (and by “often” I mean “every now and then”) likes to never be caught unprepared, I grabbed that umbrella before I left the house.

Well, it rained. A lot. Downpour. The whole walk. I kept thinking it would let up, but no. Not until I had reached the awning at the front door, shaken off the water, leaned the umbrella against the outer wall, and walked inside did it taper off. You can do that. Leave personal belongings outside the front door of the school. Nobody messes with it. 

I signed in with the new iPad system that took me twenty visits to figure out, printed out my “Visitor” sticker, said hello to Pace after I confidently entered the next set of protective doors, and made my way to the lunchroom.

This school is different, at least to my memory of elementary school. Of course, I come from a place where elementary school consisted of grades 1 through 6, and we shared a lunchroom with the high school, which consisted of grades 7 through 12. I don’t remember parents roaming freely through the halls or visiting for lunch unannounced.

It is indeed still a school, though, and it’s hard for me to walk through it without the ever present feeling that I just don’t belong. My heart rate increases, I start to sweat a little, and I fear that every teacher I run into is about to make me stand up and “repeat that in front of the class.”

The fears pass soon enough, and while I never can remember where my kids’ classrooms are, I know exactly how to get to the lunch room. My only qualm down there is the lack of real Coca-Colas that exist in the “Adults Only” coolers, an omission that I think we could all think deeply on before our heads hit the pillows tonight.

I love sitting at those tables with my kids and joking with their friends. You can do that. Joke with other kids. Especially when you know most of them by who their parents are. It’s a great, central hub for this strange little community we call Bluff Park.

The rain had stopped by the time I left that day, so I wouldn’t need the umbrella.

Good thing. It was gone.